Alum Authors Book on Smartphone Addiction

A junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison double majoring in finance and real estate, Antonow is no stranger to smartphones. As a Parker student, he had everything going for him—a loving family, a great group of friends and all the trappings of a “normal” life—but almost always felt underlying anxiety and inadequacy.

Entering college, he was hopeful these feelings would dissipate over time, but they lingered after the first semester of his freshman year. Antonow then started to realize the toll his phone was starting to take on him. “Social media made me feel like my every moment was ‘less than,’ and constant notifications made me feel like I always had something to do. The combination of both these factors made me incredibly anxious and unhappy.”

Antonow decided to try decreasing his phone use throughout the second semester of his freshman year.  After several months of attempting to modify his behavior and many tweaks to his phone’s functionality, he was able to reduce his mobile phone use by seven hours a day. He was surprised by the results and shared, “My life completely changed. My anxiety and depressive feelings dissipated, while my academics, energy, relationships and how I felt about myself all improved to the point where it feels I am living in a different reality.”

Inspired by the changes in his life satisfaction, Antonow began to write a book to give the gift of improved life quality to others. While there were books available on the topic of phone usage, they were written by people with no idea of what it is like to grow up having their social lives tied to their smartphones. Antonow said, “These older authors have written incredible books, but they can’t understand the inner workings of mobile phone usage for a teenager. When they don’t even know what an Instagram ‘ratio’ is or misunderstand the culture around constant response time in modern relationships, younger generations meet their suggestions with eye rolls.” Filling this void, Antonow authored his book Enemy in Your Pocket: How Using Your Phone Less Will Change Your Life and How to Do it with the goal of helping others break the cycle of screen addiction and explaining the issues that exist with social media and phone usage from the perspective of a younger person. He added, “I hope by explaining the issue from the perspective of someone who has been addicted to their phone since 12 years old and understands what it's like to be made to feel constantly anxious and inadequate, I can better resonate with younger groups.”

Antonow also believed these books were addressing the issue from an ineffective perspective. “I think as a society we have been tackling phone addiction completely wrong. We constantly write articles and books about collective action when we should be focusing on individual action. A phone addiction is no different than other addictions. No one can stop an alcoholic from drinking or a smoker from lighting a cigarette. The only person who can end an addiction is the person who is addicted. That is why the final chapters of my book are focused on how to redesign our mobile phone and change our habits to break our phone addictions.”

Parker congratulates Antonow on adding “author” to his resume as a college student. 

To purchase the book, click here and follow the Instagram account @eypbook for more!